The present invention relates to improvements in gravityfeed dispensers of containers, and, in one particular aspect, to unique and advantageous shelving, adapted for rack mounting and retail dispensing of bottled beverages and the like, which may be assembled to desired widths and with different numbers of product lanes from molded-plastic modules of identical economical and uncomplicated construction.
It has become a popular practice, especially in the merchandizing of small bottles and cans of beverages, to provide a rack structure which accommodates the loading of a number of like items into the rear of each of several assigned lanes or tracks of each of several stacked forwardly-slanted shelves, whence the items will slide downwardly and forward incrementally toward frontal stopped positions as customers sequentially remove those cans or bottles which happen to be in the foremost positions. Such shelving is commonly designed to provide flooring under the items, and/or to provide rail-like supports for their sliding movements, as well as to separate the items in a plurality of side-by-side lanes on each shelf. Materials such as rod- or wire-like metal, stamped sheet metal, and plastics, have been used to fabricate such shelves, and it has also been known to telescope the multi-lane shelving for lengthwise adjustments which adapt it to use with racks of various depths. In other instances, where the items to be dispensed from different lanes are not of the same width, provision has been made for adjustment of lane widths by way of laterally-movable guides or lane dividers. Containers of chilled beverages are often displayed in and dispensed from refrigerated compartments having glass doors movable to allow customer access to stacks of the rack-mounted sloping shelves.
Although laterally-adjustable dividers may enable the user to vary the number and location of lanes associated with each shelf, the overall shelf widths are not actually changed in that process, and the need to position and fasten the movable dividers involves complexity and labor which it would be better to avoid.